Recumbent Composition in Black

Exhibition. 6 works on view at ///soaks.blitz.porch, 1219 FRIENDSHIP ST, Oxford Circle. The wall is circular: walking in either direction returns to the title wall. Use Tab to move between works and Enter to read a work’s wall label. Arrow keys move along the wall.

Six works at a single point in the city, the first acquired in December 2025 and the most recent in January 2026. One commissioner: Police Department. The museum did not solicit any of them.

The works are exhibited in order of acquisition. Visitors will notice that the subject does not change; the museum invites them to consider what does.

1. Recumbent Composition in Black, No. 1 — Sedan, black lacquer, alloy and glass, stationary. Accession 18992120. Acquired December 5, 2025. 286 days on view. The work sits low, its rocker panels held within inches of the asphalt, so that the black lacquer reads as a single unbroken plane from wheel arch to arch. Pale sheets pressed against the glass interrupt that surface at two points, the only light-valued elements in an otherwise absorptive body. The brick retaining wall rises directly behind, its coursework providing a horizontal register against which the vehicle's long descending line becomes legible. The museum preserves the work as the first in a sequence in which one curb has produced repeated variations on the stationary automotive form.
2. Recumbent Composition in Black, No. 2 — Automotive, black lacquer, adhesive notice, winter light. Accession 18995736. Acquired December 8, 2025. 283 days on view. The black lacquer of the rear deck holds the overcast sky as a soft grey sheet, and the bare branches overhead are returned in the glass with more clarity than the sky itself provides. A pale green notice adheres to the inside of the rear window, its handwriting illegible at this distance; the plate recess below is empty, its mounting holes exposed. Read against its sibling in the series, the body has lost none of its gloss, and the museum preserves this view for the way a reflective surface continues to perform while the documentation attached to it accumulates.
3. Recumbent Composition in Black, No. 3 — Automotive, tinted glazing, chrome, stationary. Accession 18998158. Acquired December 9, 2025. 282 days on view. The black body has been kept glossy enough to hold the reflection of the brick wall behind it, and the chrome wheels remain bright against the darker tires. Two pale slips of paper — one inside the rear glass, one on the windshield — interrupt the otherwise uniform dark surfaces and are the only elements in the composition that read as lighter than the sky. Seen against the lit shrubs on the slope above, the work sits lower and darker than anything around it, and the museum values this piece for the way the elevated vantage sets the sedan flat against the pavement as a single black plane.
4. Recumbent Composition in Black, No. 4 — Automotive, stationary, road salt and residual snow. Accession 19075427. Acquired December 16, 2025. 275 days on view. Low winter light strikes the black flanks at a raking angle, so that the dried salt streaming down from the window seals reads as a set of vertical pale strokes across an otherwise dark ground. Snow remains banked against the tires and unbroken on the roof, while the roadway beside the work has been cleared and dried, isolating the form against wet asphalt. Seen alongside its siblings in the series, this is the coldest state in which the work has been recorded, and the museum values it for the way the salt has made the vehicle's own weathering legible on its surface.
5. Recumbent Composition in Black, No. 5 — Automotive, black lacquer, snowmelt, winter exposure. Accession 19203289. Acquired December 28, 2025. 263 days on view. The work's black lacquer holds the grey sky along the roof and door panels, and a thin sheet of unmelted ice remains across the windshield and rear glass while the flanks have run clear. Set below the brick retaining wall and its iron rail, the low body reads as the horizontal element in a composition otherwise built of verticals. Among the works gathered here, this is the one in which the silver wheels remain fully legible against the darkened surface, and the museum preserves it for that contrast.
6. Recumbent Composition in Black, No. 6 — Automotive, black lacquer, snow accumulation, curbside siting. Accession 19467999. Acquired January 19, 2026. 241 days on view. The work's black lacquer holds the winter light differently from everything around it, returning the pale sky along the roof and door panels while the snow banked against its flank stays flatly white. Plowing has shaped that bank to the contour of the body, leaving the sedan seated in a shallow trough of its own outline, and the crust remaining on the trunk lid indicates the surface has not been disturbed. Read against earlier entries in the series, in which the same form appeared on bare asphalt, the accumulation here functions as a mold taken from the work rather than a covering laid over it. The museum preserves this state as the series' clearest demonstration that the composition is now registered by its surroundings.

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